The University of Tulsa is in its second week of spring drills, with the spring game set for April 15. New coaches are getting acclimated, players are fighting for position, and improvement is being made. The following is a look back at the first few spring practices for the Golden Hurricane.

Start of a new era

Spring practice is the first on-field experience of the Bill Blankenship era for TU football. The workouts in the first week had an intense rate of work and a brisk pace, as the new coaching staff got acclimated to the players and surroundings.

"Everybody is trying to learn the language," Blankenship described. "Every guy that has a new coach is trying to figure him out."

Likewise, the coaches are figuring out the players, but you would not have known it was the first week for them to all be on the field together. There never seemed to be much confusion, and the mood on the field was constantly upbeat and positive.

Possibly the most important aspect was the amount of teaching being done by this talented and experienced coaching staff. Blankenship was helping mentor the quarterbacks with new position coach James Kilian. Offensive coordinator Greg Peterson was sprinting to receivers after they finished a route in order to immediately correct mistakes.